The "Secret" book

I am so excited about a book I am reading at the moment!  I am unable to share the title with you at the moment .. because it has to be read in secret.  I have a girl friend who has joined me on this wild ride and we are both very very excited :)
Please look for updates, ideas and a full book review post reading and doing what this "secret" books tells.

Post dinner pic!

Daddy we miss you :(

Art, By Caleb

He told me he wanted to make a cake and put it on there.. hmm how can you tell he has been spending a lot of time with ME?

COMMENTS... YOU OUT THERE??

Are YOU able to comment????  I have been having a few complaints about people not being able to comment... I have tried a few things. Please let me know if you are unable via email gmezamora@gmail.com

Blueberry Lemon Birthday Cake

This past weekend I baked this cake and cupicakes for a dear friend.  Can I tell you how much fun I had, though there are a few things that I would do differently.  What I do love though is how simple and elegant the cake looks. I do not have a picture of the completed cake. I garnished it with some sprigs of mint in the middle of the cake and right before we brought it out to serve I put lemon slices around the outside. I was caught up in the action and forgot to click the camera.

Next time when I make this I will use a lemon cake recipe instead of just a simple white cake.  I am not a white cake person. If I were to make a cake for myself I would make a chocolate cake, but I loved the blueberries on the outside.  I would also instead of just using icing in the layers I would put blueberries or blueberry filling or lemon curd or something more.  People raved about how nice this cake was because it was not too rich or to sweet it was nice.

I had typed out the recipe I used and then deleted it because I want to do a total revamp.  I want to find the perfect icing. The icing tasted yummy but I had to play with it A LOT in order to get it that way. The cake was ok but I think it needed more.

If you want to know what I did you can  comment and I will share but I think if you wait to another day and another cake the outcome will be far tastier and yummier and oooo sooo delish!

Blueberry Buckle

Yummo yummo yummo.

I was looking for something yummy with a fruit I had kicking around. I chose to bake with blueberries and I am so glad.

Blueberry Buckle

Streusel topping
1/3 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup white sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 cup chilled butter cut into pieces

Cake batter:
1 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 cup unsalted butter, room temp
1/2 cup white sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup milk
2 cups blueberries

Preheat oven to 350, grease a square pan or a round cake pan.  If I were going to make this recipe again I would def. double this and make a 9 x13 instead.

for topping combine all of the Streusel ingredient and cut in butter with fork.

In a seperate bowl combine flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.  Then Yes get a new bowl.  Cream butter until smooth and add sugar eggs and vanilla.  Beat until fluffy.  Add the flour mixture alternating with milk just until combined.  Spread batter using a spatulla in pan. Spread on blueberries, pressing them into the batter. Sprinkle on the streusal and bake for 40-50 min or until when poked with toothpick comes out clean.

Set on cooling rack until cook. Served warm or chilled.  I recommend with a cup of Guatemala Antiga (from Sbucks) and a friend, husband or child to share it with.

WARNING: You may feel enticed to eat the entire cake.  :)

Our newest favourite snack.

All of you out there with toddlers you must must must try this snack idea.  I had seen quite a few variations of this idea and came to the the apple mouth the best :)  Caleb loved it and since daddy HATES peanut butter I was able to jump in and share them with him.

Ingredients
1 apple
peanut butter
mini marshmellows

Wash and begin by slicing apple into sections. I would say as thin of sections as possible. I began by cutting mine in half and then cutting the half into pieces. Remove core on pieces and slather on the P.B.  On one side of the peanut place marshmellows and cover with the other piece of apple.  continue with the rest of the pieces. Eat and enjoy!!!  I have been wanting to make them again but we are on the tail end of our pb :(